Tiffi's Purpose

A sound broke into Tiffi’s rest. She grunted. She wasn’t ready to wake yet. The sound intruded into her rest again, a sniffling followed by a wailing. The pitch was so high her ears twitched almost in pain. With another grunt Tiffi pushed herself to her feet to go and investigate.

She had to crouch to get through the cave entrance, not a feat she’d found necessary before this hibernation, but not completely unexpected in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes hibernation meant transition which equalled a power boost, problem was Tiffi was so old she’d lost track of which hibernation she was up to. Even crouched her wings scraped along the rough rock edges of the cave entrance.

Outside the cave Tiffi realised, that at some point, whilst wriggling her way out, the wailing sound had stopped. With a short huff she wished she had not bothered to move, this was turning out to be a waste of good sleep. Well as she was up now and had no intention of trying to squeeze through the hole she’d just come through she figured she may as well just get on with it. Whatever this season of her life was going to bring.

Moving her head slowly to take in her surrounds, she noted things were much like she’d left them before she entered her hibernation. The scents around her were forest green and earthy and with an appreciation for the small notes of beauty around her, smiled at the golden touch of early morning light filtering through the trees leaving dappled patterns everywhere.

Drawing in a deep breath she felt the heat burning at the core of her beginning to stir. Enjoying the moment of peace – for as much as she hated the first little bit post hibernation, she loved the solitude that came because the other animals were waiting to see what she was going to do.

Stretching her neck to work out the kinks, she then moved the stretch out to her wings, slowly extending them. Swinging her head to the left, she noted new shades of blue in the wingspan that hadn’t been there before. Arching her back she started to ponder the significance of this new development, she had been waiting for any colour but brown to show up for her whole life.

She heard something shuffling through the forest off to her right, it didn’t sound like the animals were stirring and she hoped the fire within would be ready. It usually took longer to charge after waking, she could only hope the power boost she felt would be enough to save her.

Spinning as fast as she could she opened her maw to incinerate that which hunted her, only to have to swallow the flame and seconds later belch out a dark cloud of smoke that floated up through the dappled light of the clearing.

In front of her was a human, her natural enemy, however this one was tiny. Hardly any kind of threat, Tiffi was sure. Tiny was something she understood though. In a world of dragons, she had often been teased for her size. Of course, she was still significantly bigger than the tiny human, but her four-foot shoulder height was slightly half of what most dragons were. She had managed to survive, against the odds, against her own kind trying to ‘weed’ her out of the bloodline, as they said. She may not have had size, but she did have smarts and smarts were how she was still around over a century after her hatching.

Leftover smoke tickled the back of her throat and she turned away to cough, so the heat and smoke wouldn’t bother the child. She realised halfway through the action that the flame was churning inside still and needed to find a way out if, it didn’t it might cause her problems later. Turning her head to the sky Tiffi inhaled, felt the click in the back of her throat and roared skyward, hoping there was enough of a gap in the trees for nothing to catch fire. The orange and yellow flame held edges of blue and green as it danced in the air, distracting her momentarily. Again, something else had changed which she may need to understand more about, but that could wait for later.

Tiffi heard a different sound coming from the little human and turned to study it. Its mouth was open, and eyes seemed filled with blue sparkles as something Tiffi decided sounded like tiny bubbles emanated from it. When the flames faded the bubble noise stopped, the little one looked at Tiffi expectantly before looking back to the space the flames had filled. Wondering, Tiffi sent a little flame up and the bubbly sound came again from the little one.

Staring in wonder at the joy that seemed to flow from the little one but didn’t answer the question as to what it was doing out here in the middle of the forest. Surely, her logical mind decided, where there was a little one, there was usually a larger one and larger ones were trouble, or at least they were in Tiffi’s experience.

The little one moved faster than Tiffi would have expected given the fact it was a little wobbly on its feet, when it got to her side it reached out and patted her leg. Tiffi tensed not sure what her next action should be, before she found herself getting angry. The child wasn’t wearing anything but dirt, yet Tiffi could distinguish dark marks that weren’t dirt marking the little one’s skin. These marks were on the little one’s face and all up its arms. Something in Tiffi stirred. She didn’t know exactly what caused these marks, but she instinctively knew they were wrong. Tiffi knew about bullies and abhorred them.

A tugging on her wing drew Tiffi’s attention back to the little one and she extended her wing slowly, which caused the little one’s eyes to light up with unmistakable joy. Giving a little flap, the movement caused the air to shift, and the child wobbled briefly before landing on its bottom. Its lower lip pushed out and its eyes widened slightly for a second before the sparkle returned and the bubble noise again filled the air. The dragon watched the tiny human struggle to its feet and point to her wings again. Just as she was about to comply, they heard a thrashing in the trees.

“Where are you brat!” a gruff, angry shouting was heard.

The little one’s eyes went wide, its breathing sped up and silent tears began to fall as the child held its hand over its mouth and scooted closer to Tiffi.

The dragon didn’t need to understand any more than that. It was obvious the child was terrified of whoever it was stomping through the undergrowth and the anger rising in Tiffi overrode her usual flight for survival reflex. She moved to place her body between the child and the oncoming fully grown male human who burst out of the trees, face flushed red and his cloud of surrounding stench stinging Tiffi’s nose.

“There you are welp,” he growled.

Tiffi was surprised to realise the man was for some reason ignoring her. He may have stood taller than she did, but for the first time ever Tiffi felt what her family referred to as the fire of the just burning in her chest. Without a thought she opened her mouth in the direction the man lumbering towards the child. A white-hot flame with flickers of blue burst out, precisely directed. By the time he noticed her attack it was too late for him to do anything. The flame wrapped itself around him and his body disintegrated within its embrace.

As the flame dissipated Tiffi sunk to her haunches. Her heart was racing fast. What has she done? Well, she knew what she had done, she had killed a human. Panic started to build in her, until a tiny hand touched the side of her neck. Turning her head, she saw the little one staring at her solemnly. In that moment Tiffi new she had a new purpose, survival was all well and good, but protecting this tiny creature gave her a renewed feeling of purpose. Worry over what that meant tried to push its way to the surface, but the little one chose that moment to burp and fall on its bottom. Tiffi looked as the bubble sound started again. She was becoming quite attached to that sound.

As carefully as she could Tiffi pushed her tail under the little one, who scrambled up her back, instinctively finding the best place to sit. Sighing in contentment Tiffi flapped her wings and lifted off the ground. First order of business was to find a new place to live, a small, dank cave just wouldn’t do. She didn’t even notice as the breeze caused by her wings resulted in the ash from the human male being blown away. Her mind too busy trying to figure out how she was going to look after her new charge.